


Hardboiled

by echoinautumn (maybetwice)



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Best Friends, Detective Noir, Femme Fatale, Gen, Holodecks/Holosuites, Male Friendship, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-25
Updated: 2011-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-28 02:45:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/302870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybetwice/pseuds/echoinautumn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Julian and Miles play out the mystery of a heart-breaking jewel thief in the holosuites.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hardboiled

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bonster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bonster/gifts).



A knock on the clouded glass of his door was just what Julian Bashir, P.I. had been waiting for for the better part of a quarter-hour while reviewing his case files. He dropped the stack of notes onto the manila folder he had pulled them from and pushed his fedora back on his head.

“Come in,” he said in a calm, cool sort of voice, the kind he imagined a real 20th century private investigator would use between smoking cigarettes and chasing dangerous dames. The door opened and Miles walked in, giving the inscribed glass a skeptical look from the corner of his eye.

“Nice office, Julian,” he said flatly and removed the hat he was wearing. His tie was a little crooked and he looked uncomfortable in the suit, but he approached Julian’s desk and held up a file very much like the one Julian had open on his desk.

“A pleasure to have you here, as always, Chief,” Julian answered and leaned over the desk with his hand out, but Miles held it back toward his chest with a knowing smile rather than handing it over to him.

“Police files aren’t open to private investigators,” Miles reminded him, but threw it on the desk all the same, pulling back a chair and sitting down across from him. He dropped his hat on the edge of the desk. “They’ll have my head at the department if they find out I’m sharing evidence with you.”

“Oh, shut up,” Julian grinned and picked it up. “The whole point of your program is to collaborate on the case, right?”

“That’s the idea,” Miles said and tapped his fingers against his knee. “But back into character, Mr. Bashir. We’ve got a femme fatale with a stolen diamond.”

“Ah, of course,” he said and flipped through a few pages, skimming through the information Miles had brought with him. Most of the evidence was the same, that a Miss Marguerite Deloitte had charmed her way into the heart of the wealthy heir to the Vanderbilt fortune. She had been so charming, in fact, that he had proposed with a very old diamond ring from his great-grandmother. Miss Marguerite had since disappeared, the ring and a number of other highly-treasured and valuable family heirlooms along with her, and the family had quietly asked for assistance in tracking her down for the safe return of their valuables. When he--or his character, at least--had consulted his friend, the police chief, Miss Deloitte had been revealed as a notorious jewel thief with a list of aliases as long as her police record.

“That’s all I’ve got on her,” Miles explained and smiled wryly. “We’ll have to work with this if we want to find her and the evidence pinning the thefts on her.”

“That’s all very well,” Julian said and stood up, plucking his suit jacket from the back of his chair and slipping it on with an easy grin, waving a sheet of paper at him. “My notes say that I tracked her down in Hell’s Kitchen, to a bar that she seems to like, and a...” He stole another look at the paper to refresh his memory. “A John McLintock, apparently.”

Miles gave a low whistle and caught his hat when Julian tossed it to him while circling around the desk, then he followed him toward the door, grabbing up his file and tucking it under his arm. “An associate to deal in the jewels?”

Julian grinned and tipped the brim of his hat toward Miles. “A _paramour_ , if those notes are to be believed.”

“Oh, for--” Miles closed the door behind them, causing the glass to rattle perilously. “We aren’t going to see our lady engaging in any kind of behavior my wife might not want me to see?”

“I don’t think this is that kind of program.” Julian adjusted his hat again and started off down the street. “At least, I hope not. If it helps, I’ll do the watching and provide some of the particularly excellent highlights for you.”

“Thanks,” Miles said dryly and picked up his pace to match Julian’s. “That’s terribly considerate of you.” The bar wouldn’t be too far from Julian’s office--the holosuite saw to that, to prevent them from spending too much of their hard-won free time on meaningless aspects of an otherwise extremely detailed program.

“I thought so, too,” Julian remarked sincerely, oblivious to the flat tone in Miles’s voice. “Ah, here we are,” he added, checking the slip of paper he’d jotted the name of the bar onto. “We’ll have to keep a low profile if we’re going to watch them.”

Miles made a face at him, but held the door for Julian. “I wasn’t really planning to walk up to them, demand some jewels and wave an arrest warrant in her face.”

“Quiet, Chief!” Julian interjected quickly before Miles could say anything more, shoving the paper into his pocket and waving the file back into Miles’s jacket.

Miles, who had spent a great deal more time in old noir-style holosuite programs than Julian ever had, batted his hand away with a roll of his eyes. He slipped it under his arm so it looked like they were little more than a pair of businessmen there to talk about some venture or another. Then he found them a quiet corner with a clear view of the bar, though the bar itself wasn’t very crowded.

“Bit of a dump, isn’t it?” Julian mumbled, casting a sideways glance at the other patrons from beneath his hat, which he removed and set on the table. When the waitress approached them, though, his face lit up with a cheerful smile that was all too evidently the result of her short skirt and pretty face. Miles looked away before rolling his eyes hard.

“Just a whiskey for me,” he said to the waitress, who gave him a sweeping smile before seeming to recall that she had to ask Julian for his choice.

“I’ll have a very dry martini,” he said, looking put out by her lack of attention. When she was gone, he leaned across the table. “Is she programmed to flirt with the police chief?”

Miles dropped the file on the table and rubbed his forehead. “Are you going to want to play him next time?”

Julian sat back and spun his hat on his fingers. “I don’t know, maybe I will. I’m not really sure what it is you like about these programs.”

“Same thing you like about that James Bond program of yours,” Miles teased and set down his hat as well, looking up at the bar. Their drinks came and though the glasses were obviously old, they were at least clean and the drinks tasted as well as if they had come from a replicator.

“Wish I knew what this McLintock fellow looked like.”

“Didn’t have a picture,” Julian admitted and picked up his martini, then sputtered a little on it when he saw Miss Deloitte stroll through the doors with her hair dyed a darker color than her previous arrest records, or the picture that had come with Julian’s files. “Miles--that’s--heavens, this is strong--that’s her!” He coughed into a handkerchief and his eyes watered. “She’s quite good-looking.”

“That’s how she gets her guys,” Miles reminded him, though he privately thought that Julian did have a point while Miss Deloitte took a seat in a table not very far from their own. “Maybe you can charm her into telling you about the thefts.”

Julian looked stricken, and then began grinning slowly as he considered all the ways he could accomplish just that. “There’s an idea. Might even be something built into the program that would allow me to solve the mystery by stealing her away from McLintock!”

Miles sputtered, “Julian--no, that’s not what I really meant. We’re supposed to solve this one together! God, next time I’m playing this one with Odo. He can be the police chief.”

“But you play with me,” Julian reminded him with such cheer that Miles thought he was enjoying the opportunity to rib him. “If only because I’m more fun than Odo.”

“Sometimes I think it’s because I enjoy the misery of watching you violate all the things I enjoy about a good mystery--” Miles was cut off mid-sentence by a dapper man with a well-starched suit and a perfect coif of blond hair approaching Miss Deloitte’s table. He wore the kind of smile that hinted at intimate knowledge of her, and Miles stopped talking in favor of watching them over the rim of his highball glass.

Julian caught on quickly and tried to look as subtle as possible when he leaned back to see the man clearly. “Think that’s our John McLintock?”

“Good luck stealing her from him.” Miles sighed and looked back at Julian, returning to some kind of natural appearance that didn’t include gawking at Miss Deloitte and Mr. McLintock. “Wish we could hear what they were talking about. They’re nearly whispering.”

“We’ll follow them after this,” Julian declared and smiled a little into his martini. “They might take us right to the jewels, and that’s the proof we need, right?”

Though he protested sometimes that he didn’t enjoy Miles’s detective holosuite programs nearly as much as his own programs, Julian had certainly joined him often enough for them that Miles thought he didn’t mind very much. Together they had solved no fewer than three murders, two robberies, a missing persons’ case, and an unusual collection of other crimes and mysteries; sometimes as partners in a P.I. firm, though more often like this, as police chief and his dearest friend the private investigator. Julian had even gotten very good at the period slang and working out the internal logic of the mysteries and the universe they occurred in, so different than their own.

“Looks like it,” Miles said and watched them carefully, taking a few notes on their body language and position in the bar on the back of a napkin with a pen he carried in his shirt pocket. “Though, I think this one’s been a little straightforward, I’d bet there’s a twist we’re not expecting.”

“Oh,” Julian sighed and looked at the paper napkin. “I guess that’s true.”

Miss Deloitte had just thrown her head back with a bright laugh, and her fingers were tracing slow patterns on Mr. McLintock’s arm in apparent flirtation, when a computerized beep that could not have originated from the program attracted both Julian and Miles’s attention.

“Sisko to Bashir and O’Brien.” Sisko’s voice was serious, but his tightly-guarded tone never betrayed the severity of a situation before they could be fully briefed. An interruption could mean a minor problem on the station, or it could mean catastrophe. He could have just as easily been calling them about something as trivial as an upcoming staff meeting, or something devastating about the war with the Dominion. The two of them exchanged identical frowns.

“Computer, pause program,” Julian sighed first, and Miles looked away from his disappointed expression up toward the ceiling.

“O’Brien here. What’s the problem, Captain?”

“In my office, gentlemen,” came the answer, but Julian and Miles were both already on their feet. “Immediately, please.”

“Understood,” Miles sighed and grabbed his hat from the table, then Julian’s, which he threw toward him. “Computer, end program.”

The bar dissolved around them, leaving them in the blank holosuite, wearing out-dated fashions and carrying hats. Miles smiled wryly at Julian and headed for the exit. “I’ll have to finish another time,” he said as they stepped out into the corridor on the upper level of Quark’s.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not going to catch a dame like Marguerite Deloitte with _Odo_ , goodness.” He jammed his hat on his head, leading the way to the turbolift. Miles followed, ignoring a few uncovered grins from passers-by when they climbed onto the lift. The sight of the two of them dressed up peculiarly was a fixture on the station that few of the civilian population ever seemed to comment on anymore.

“Julian,” Miles sighed and rolled his eyes up at the top of the turbolift.

“Ops.” Julian crossed his arms in front of him and looked at him from the corner of his eye. “You’re not doing it without me, Miles, that’s all there is to it.”

“Of course,” Miles assured him faintly and tried not to laugh at Julian’s intense expression. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

**Author's Note:**

> I was dying to write this all through the Yuletide season, and I'm so glad I actually got it done in time! I could have probably written oh-so-many words about the detective adventures of Bashir and O'Brien, but I thought it was better to limit myself (for now!) for the sake of sleeping at all during the rush of Yuletide Madness! While I'm really into detective/noir fiction on my own, I drew on O'Brien's canon love of mystery novels for this (and the idea that if he indulges Bashir's spy fantasies, Bashir might return the favor by playing detective holoprograms with him!), and I hope it suits your desires! I ship them really hard myself, and I truly wish I could have gotten a little beyond the bromance in this, but that will have to come another time! Happy, happy Yuletide!


End file.
